You heard us make reference to “we’re recording this” during the run, but you may have heard the ultimate plan. Our tech setup allowed to archive all the best parts of DB09 in full HD, for future generations to realize that it’s… actually not as fun to watch unless you were there…

But still! It’s lives, and we’ll be trickling out the videos as quickly as we’re able to conveniently upload them. There’s over 200 recordings in total, so that may take a while.

As many of you know, Desert Bus was just a little break from our everyday lives and jobs, which we’re all now trying to catch up with, even as Loading Ready Run continues to make multiple videos a week. In the midst of all this, yes, we are working on packaging, labeling and mailing the mountainous pile of awesome prizes and auction items from Desert Bus.

We totally understand that those of you who won cool stuff or donated hundreds of dollars for cool stuff want to know just where your cool stuff is and when you might be getting it. Here are a few answers (or the closest we can give to answers).

Did you get the email with my name/address/other random info? I didn’t hear back from you!
Yes. Unless we have emailed you specifically saying, send us your mailing address b/c we don’t have it, we got your email and have taken note of your mailing info. We greatly appreciate all your informative emails and the many accompanying messages of encouragement, but due to the high volume of emails we’ve gotten (and the fact that they mostly arrived during Desert Bus, when we were busy with other things like singing silly songs for you for the children in front of the camera), we have not been able to respond to all of them. So you should really only have heard from us if there’s a problem. In this instance, silence is a good thing.

How can I be sure that you got my information and that I will get my prize?Trust us. We’re good people. Mostly. No really, we have your prizes, all of which have now been packaged and labeled, and we will send them to you as soon as we can. If you’re really really worried, shoot us an email at [email protected] and we can verify that we have your information and that it’s correct. Would a catgirl lie to you?

WHEN will I get my stuff?Isn’t life more fun when it’s full of little surprises? Honestly, we can’t tell you exactly when things will arrive. We are currently in the process of physically putting items in the mail – this will be happening over the course of this week and next. Everything is being sent via Canada Post Expedited Mail (a fairly fast service), which gives us a tracking number for each item. We understand that there are many valuable prizes being sent out and we want to do everything we can to ensure that they get to you safely. Due to factors like the high volume of mail at this time of year, we aren’t able to provide estimates of arrival dates, but with the tracking numbers we can make sure that items are on their way to you.

We’d like to say thanks again to everyone who participated in Desert Bus this year and made it so totally bussing awesome. And when it comes to sending you your sweet winnings, be patient with us please – we are but mere mortals!

Are you Colin Voyles or Geoff Bell? I’m happy to tell you you won a fantastic draw prize during Desert Bus!

I’m unhappy to tell you that because we haven’t been able to contact you, we might have to re-draw. If you are one of these folks (or you know one of them them) we need an email from the address connected with your paypal account (so we can verify your identity) by noon PST on Monday to [email protected].

Otherwise, we’ll re-draw from the same list of eligible donators we drew from initially.

Well it would appear we are setting our selfs up for a bit of a tradition around these parts, by producing yet another musical themed Desert Bus video to wrap everything up. We hope you guys enjoy… TUCSON OR BUST!

Even with our event over, and our ChipIn marked as closed, those of you still watching this site will notice that our donation total continues to rise. Is this a mistake? Absolutely not!

In fact, these are more amazing Desert Bus donations contributed via e-cheque, that are only now clearing through PayPal. As a result, our total has risen almost $5000 since Desert Bus came to a close last Thursday.

How high will it get? We honestly don’t know — we have no way of really tracking e-cheque donations. We’ll announce our final total at the end of the week, by which time we’re pretty sure everything will have gone through. Can we break $140 000 (double last year’s total)? The answer is mere days away.

Did you donate money during Desert Bus? If you did, you can claim your donation to Child’s Play as a donation to a registered US charity – it is therefore tax deductible. Child’s Play’s tax ID number is 20-3584556.

If you have any questions about donations and tax, or would like to get a receipt for your donation, please contact:

I’ve been meaning for a few days now to put up a big thank-you to everyone who covered Desert Bus, and helped us get attention over the course of our run. It’s been a few days, and it’s taken some time for all of us to recover, so sorry that blog posts have been few and far-between. Its funny to come back to your real life after something like Desert Bus — as something that took up almost a week of our lives, it feels like it was over in an instant. Time rolled together, like giant one-day party, that mysteriously ate up much more than one day, and now feel like it happened a year ago; it’s crazy.

Anyway, back on topic, here’s a recap of more-or-less everyone who covered us over the course of the event. If you know of any articles I’ve missed, please let me know.

Press & Newsblog Coverage:

1Up: Huge thanks again for Frank Cifaldi of The Lost Levels for calling in to check up on us and give us some history on Desert Bus and Smoke and Mirrors, and, of course huge thanks for donating the Retronauts blog post on Smoke and Mirrors to us.

A Life Well Wasted: Big thanks to Robert Ashley for dedicating part of his fifth of his labour-of-love podcast to Desert Bus, and for pimping us out at the end of the article. Check out the best-put-together interview you will ever hear with Matt and myself in the latest episode of ALWW.

Columbia College Interactive Media Blog: Thanks to longtime supporter Brice Puls for this very nice writeup. Brice, I had no idea you were involved in such an interesting educational program; best of luck and thanks for the support!

Crispy Gamer: Huge thanks to Matt and James from Crispy Gamer, both for the lovely article, and for offering prize packs to several of our viewers farther on into the week. Just when I thought we might drop off in donations and press coverage, there was Crispy to prove me wrong on both counts. Thanks, guys!

Critical Gamer: Rikard across the pond at Critical Gamer wrote a quick recap of our progress midway through our run, that sent our chat into a linking frenzy. Cheers, sir!

Future Shop Tech Blog: Again, I didn’t even know Future Shop had a tech blog, but there it is. Paul Hunter wrote a nice article for us there, also mirrored on NextGenPlayer.com.

Game Marathons: Game Marathons is a great community for all forms of video game marathon. This year, they posted both an introductory post for us, and an interview with Matt while we were still in-progress. Huge thanks for all the coverage, guys!

Game Politics: As someone who is interested in both games and politics, and someone who writes sketches about game culture for a living, I am an avid reader of Game Politics. I’m super happy that they covered us, so thanks to everyone there for the writeup.

GamePro: John Davison, the new EIC of GamePro, and a Desert Bus phone-in alumni from last year gave us a very nice writeup, and a followup article as well. Thanks a bundle, John, for all your support. I personally look forward to see the direction one of North America’s last surviving game print publications takes going forward.

Icrontic: Bobby Miller did a really good article for Icrontic, outlining the event for a really cool geek community. It’s definitely worth a look!

The Independent: Imagine my surprise at discovering we’d been covered by a larger British news outlet … classified as “Relax News”, no-less. I’m flattered, thanks to whoever wrote this piece–it’s very well done!

Joystiq: Not only did Justin from Joystiq call in to give us support and a prize pack during the event, he also wrote two articles for us, the first announcing the start of the event, and a second announcing its final total. These were both mirrored around the internet, but his voice is distinct enough that it’s pretty easy to tell its source. Thanks, man!

News 1130: These guys mirrored a couple articles about us, but also Erin Loxam also penned this original report. Thanks, guys, for all the support!

New TV: I didn’t get a chance to read Liz Miller’s article on us until today, but it’s a very nice piece — which gives us a five-star rating for entertainment, no less. Thanks so much, Liz!

One Last Continue: I don’t know a lot about One Last Continue, although this was the blog that inspired my RoJo story for ENN. Huge Props to Lars for the shout-out and overview of the event. Rosco is appoint.

Rock-Paper-Shotgun: Huge props to Kieron at RPS for the quick shoutout, even though Desert Bus is clearly not a PC game ;). I guess it would be if we were emulating it, but no, real Sega CD for the win! Thanks so much!

The Serious Business: If there was any doubt before that Desert Bus was srs bsnss, I hope that this post on The Serious Business has squashed it. Thanks, guys, for the support!

The Times Colonist: It took until the event was over for our local paper to cover us, but when they did, it got mirrored all over the place, from Seattle, to Kelowna to the NY Times. Huge thanks to the TC for getting us out on the wire with this article!

The Tweet Gazette: No doubt inspired by our trending status on Friday, the Tweet Gazette did a quick article on us. Thanks for sending … tweeple? our way, Tweet Gazette!

Vibrant Victoria: I frankly had no idea that Victoria even had local news blogs, until my one-time schoolmate Tristan contacted me for an interview about Desert Bus. His article is a unique interview with the crew in mid-run, and definitely worth a read!

Virtual Underground: It’s good to see coverage from smaller, grassroots gaming communities, alongside the major blogs. Thanks to Virtual Underground for their shout-out and coverage.

Wired News: Gus Mastrapa at Wired News’s Game Life blog wrote a fantastic article as we were in the midst of our “gearing up” montage for this year’s bus ride. We really appreciated the coverage right out of the gate, so huge props for this!

Lifestyle and Personal Blog Coverage

After spending several hours putting together the above, I am running out of words to describe the amount of awesome that folks around the net have contributed to Desert Bus. Thanks so much to everyone who committed space on his or her personal blog to us — your comments were among the most impassioned, and your stories the most poignant.

Blue Ink Alchemy by Josh -Thank you sir for all the support on the blog, in chat, over email, etc. We really really appreciate it!

Bloginhood by Robin Shanz – thanks for the vote of confidence, Robin, and for letting your folks know about us!

Effing the Dog by Mike Vardy – Mike’s exceptionally funny productivity blog is well worth reading, and his article on Desert Bus is very, very good. This is one you should definitely look at. Did you know Mike’s appeared in ENN? He’s our own personal Sony Representative!

Empties Crushed by Dan Yost goes into some details about the history of Desert Bus, and recaps the beginnings of our fundraiser. Again, thanks, Dan, for sending so much love our way!

Goodnight, Neverland by Clinton Hallahan presents a nice overview of the event and some much-needed words of encouragement – thanks, man!

Inane Rantings of Meby Alex – Thanks Alex for the exposure. We appreciate it, and thanks for the props regarding our sketch comedy as well. We’re proud of it!

Jason Montgomery – Proposes DB as a downloadable XBLA/PSN game – an idea we’ve though of before, though getting the writes sorted is maybe a bit beyond a group of comedians.

Twenty-Sided by Shamus Young – if you read one blog about Desert Bus, read this one. Our fellow Escapist contributor Shamus has a lot to say about Child’s play that is well worth a look. Also, thanks, Shamus, for the shout-out earlier in the week!

The RaT Project podcast chatted about us extensively during their Nov 23 episode, as we were in the midst of an epic run. Thanks, guys!

With minds completely boggled by your generosity, we have all gone home to sleep and try to recover from the utter awesomeness of the past several days. We’re so very grateful to all our sponsors, donators, viewers and everyone who helped out by calling in, bringing food (and caffeine), stopping by to visit and generally making Desert Bus the huge success it has been.

This was a triumph.

We am very very appoint.

We love you all, and we look forward to continuing to hear from you via twitter, the loadingreadyrun.com and Escapist Magazine forums, and right here at desertbus.org. Please check back over the next week or two as we continue to post all the amazing art, music and videos from the last week. And remember that you can send feedback about this year’s Desert Bus to [email protected].

Here are some links if you would like to go back and browse through the mountains of fan art and other submissions, milestone pictures, and various other things that were posted about on this blog over the course of the event. There’s more coming, too! We hope to do some organizing over the next few days, making it a bit easier to sort through all this great material.